Environmental Concerns for a Server Room?

christian_thoma asks: "My company is currently in the preparation phase for building a huge new manufacturing facility. While reviewing the site plan, I've discovered that there is both a cell phone tower and high voltage lines within 100-150 meters of where the server room is going to be placed. Do I need to be concerned? Are there any special considerations when designing my server room that I need to be aware of? Has anyone else had to deal with a similar situation?"

Comments

Well you want to call 911...

[MerlynEmrys67]

When the electrical lines fall into your server farm setting them on fire

Good prior planning

Fossil fuels

[AtariAmarok]

I, for one, avoid using old-fashioned coal-fired Godbout and IMSAI servers in the server room. This keeps the IT operation "clean and green" and prevents global warming.

Wear appropriate headgear

[Anonymous Coward]

The CIA can spy on you using electromagnetic radiation from the powerlines to irratiate your thoughts which can be picked up from the cell tower. A tin foil hat may prevent this.

Re:Wear appropriate headgear

[Anonymous Coward]

Tin foil hats are so old school. Real men wrap their head with a lead bucket.

well there's one benefit...

[advocate_one]

you'll always have five bars of signal strength... or would that be the end of the old "no signal" excuse favoured by those who're trying to avoid being dragged off to the next fire-fighting fix episode...

Seriously... get the server room shielded with wire mesh built into the walls and conductive film on the windows... like a Faraday Cage... then you won't get weird interference problems

Re:well there's one benefit...

[christian_thoma]

Not to the outside world, but you want one in the inside door. Why? Simple: You want to know if someone is in your server room.

Regular health check-ups for the servers

[UserChrisCanter4]

Junk science has shown that these servers will have quadruple the risk of developing cancer.

Make sure to have the company doctor check them out occasionally, although the servers should be aware that the company doctor does not work for them.

Too far away...

[DjReagan]

Inverse square law means the electromagnetic fields given off by both of those will have dropped right down to negligible amounts over the 100-150meters. You really shouldn't worry about it.

Re:Too far away...

[menscher]

Inverse square law means the electromagnetic fields given off by both of those will have dropped right down to negligible amounts over the 100-150meters.

Too bad the inverse square law doesn't apply for the high voltage power lines. It will just fall off as 1/r (where r is your distance from the lines), not 1/r^2. You're right about the cell phone tower, though.

Oh, and yes, IAAP (I am a physicist.)

Re:Too far away...

[MrWim]

The inverse square law applies to point sources, you can imagine that the points which are equidistant from a point is a sphere, so all the radiation is shared out over the surface area of the sphere 4r^2, so the intensity is proportional to 1/r^2. Power lines are lines, so the equidistant points form a cylinder, surface area 2rh, so the intensity is proportional to 1/r. HTH

dental implants = resonance mind control

[shrubya]

Your servers are safe. Heck, all that EM will shield them from Tempest snooping.

However, if you have any fillings in your teeth, get them replaced with non-conductive material by a certified herbalist. Or do I mean certifiable?

Ever hear of the Inverse-Square Law? The cell phone on your belt clip pumps more EM into your precious racks (and obviously into you) than that tower.

Re:dental implants = resonance mind control

[sydb]

I encourage all people who wear cell phones on their belts to position them as close to their crotch as possible. Three benefits:

* Set your phone to vibrate and smile with every incoming call.
* Rapid access to the phone; if you're scratching your nads and the phone goes off you're only a matter of inches from hitting the "accept" key.
* There will in future be fewer people who wear cell phones on their belts.

Thanks for your co-operation.

Precautions

[Ropati]

I wouldn't be overly concerned with the RF interference being generated at the site, but you should review the matter.

First, I would suggest that you have the site tested for RF levels. The tests should be fairly inexpensive. From the results you can decide if precautions are required.

You still need to consider future RF issues in case the cellular company decides to upgrade. It would be prudent to have some RF grounding brought into the server room and extend the ground to the racks and cable runs. Well grounded equipment will minimize any RF issues.

Multiple grounding might actually cause issues if there is stray AC from the high voltage. You can check for stray AC by having some ground rods placed at the site and check for AC potentials between the rods. A single low impedance ground is the best solution, but some electrical contractors don't understand the requirements.

Also, the cell tower could easily cause interference with WiFi or other RF equipment. If your new plant is going to depend on low power radio IT connectivity for either the plant or for IT, you should have an interference study done.

The Practice of System and Network Administration

[Gustavo]

The book The Practice of System and Network Administration has a few excelent chapters covering everything you need to think about when planning a data center. It's a great book.